tion of justice women as well as men expressed their opinions.'

Among the western tribes of Torres Straits, Australia, "there was no recognized government or state, nor any system of religion." Ancient customs were their laws."

The Greenland Esquimaux are very low in the intellectual and moral scale. Their notions of supernatural beings are extremely hazy-they have no definite religion, and "absolutely no political organization among them." The Greenlanders' "first social law is to help others. On this law and on the principle of common suffering and common enjoyment, all the small communities depend for their existence." Their grand idea of virtue is "to have been dexterous and diligent at their work," to have performed great exploits, mastered many whales and seals to be distributed among the members of the group according to old and definite rules. Only those who have performed such acts (good social actions, utterly irrespective of motive), will go to the Elysium where the feast is always preparing. They believe "wicked people and witches especially" will be banished to a place of torment."

Among "the Indians," writes Schoolcraft, "the democratic principle is implanted a little too deep. The chief has no authority to act for the tribe, and dare not do it. If he does he will be severely beaten or killed at some future time. All business is done by the majority of the band assembling and consulting each other." The motion "that appears the best is adopted by general consent and the chief has to be governed according to the voice or opinion of the tribe."7 1 Thomson, New Zealand. Haddon, p. 314.

'Nansen, ii, 340: Hall, ii, 316; Crantz.

'Nansen, ii, 304.

See Crantz, and Nansen, ii, 302.

Crantz. For impulsive social vengeance upon witches, see i, 194. 'Schoolcraft, ii, 182-3.

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Strength of Ancient Custom

Among the Hill tribes of India each little village is practically an independent community. Every man is as good as his neighbor. There are meetings of the elders for arbitration, to prevent individual vengeance, and Punjayets, or councils of the whole tribe for judicial purposes, etc. Thus, the Nágás "have no kind of internal government," no priesthood apparently, and very few religious ceremonies. "Petty disputes and disagreements . . . are settled by a council of elders, the litigants voluntarily submitting to their arbitration. But, correctly speaking, there is not the shadow of a constituted authority in the Nágá community, and wonderful as it may seem, this want of government does not lead to any marked degree of anarchy and confusion." They exhibit intense love for their native village. Terrible blood feuds exist among them, and " the Nágá's religion, the Nágá's principle and sense of honor is comprised in one word, and that word is revenge-deep, deadly revenge-and the prosecution of it to the extremest lengths for the most trifling offences." Ancient custom is intensely strong among all these peoples.

MacGahan writes in Campaigning on the Oxus, (p. 350), "The state does not exist among the Turcomans. There is no body politic, no recognized authority, no supreme power, no higher tribunal than public opinion. Their head men, it is true, have a kind of nominal authority to settle disputes; but they have no power to enforce decisions. These the litigants can accept, or fight out their quarrel, just as they please. And yet they have such well-defined notions of right and wrong as between themselves, and public opinion is so strong in enforcing these notions, that there are rarely dissensions or quarrels among them." This shows the great power of social custom in repressing criminal instincts. Each member of a tribe, of course, obeys his tribal customs. Ibid., xxiv, 609.

'Stewart, xxiv, 608.

The origin of crime and social punishment, therefore, cannot be traced to the command of supernatural powers, nor to the dictates of any king or human ruler. Where, then, shall we seek it? The answer is surely manifest. The strong and sufficient cause for the social punishment of crime must be looked for in those ancient and time-honored customs, for which savages can give no reason, but which they follow instinctively, in blind reverence and unquestioning obedience; for they are the teachings of Mother Nature, drilled into countless generations of savage ancestors. They are lessons in social necessity, in social selection, where failure to learn, or refusal to obey, means the inevitable destruction of the social group-means social death. Crime is essentially a social product.

But are the imperative commands of immemorial custom everywhere so strong and binding upon low savage men? The evidence is overwhelming. Turn where you will, you find the same answer. The mere mass of testimony is so great, from America, Asia, Africa and Oceanica, that it would be folly to attempt to give, here, other than a few examples, some of them already referred to.

AUSTRALIA.-"As amongst all savage tribes, the Australian native is bound hand and foot by custom. What. his fathers did before him he must do. Any infringement of custom, within certain limitations, is visited with sure and often severe punishment." *

In the Islands of the Pacific Ocean, law is scarcely ever separated at all from ancestral custom, which is very powerful.2

AMERICA.-Among the American Indians ancient social customs define and are most powerful for maintaining mutual rights and duties.

Aleuts.-"The Aleuts still maintain that a failure to ob'Spencer and Gillen, pp. 11–12. 'See p. 77. Papuan Islanders.

56

Ancestral Teachings

serve the customs of their forefathers, and especially a wilful neglect of the same, is attended with all kinds of disasters and punishments."

Dakotas. Children of the Dakota are taught all the ancient customs of the race and obedience to them."

Araucanians of South America.-Their "laws are nothing more than primordial usages, or tacit conventions, that have been established among them." The Araucanians elect their chiefs, who are regarded simply as "the first among equals." This people "cannot endure despotism," and compel" the chiefs "to keep within the bounds prescribed by their customs." 3

ASIA.-Khonds.-There is unfaltering devotion to the common cause and to the ancient customs of the race.^

Karens.-"The Karens ascribe all their laws to the elders of preceding generations and have no idea of any period when they did not exist." These traditional commands meet all the relations of man to man, moral and political, civil and religious.5

AFRICA.-Gold Coast Negroes.-" A semi-political and religious custom called Egbo is the most potent controlling influence in old Callebar and fulfils all the purposes of a natural code of laws."6

Hottentots.-The office of captain of each kraal (i. e., village) is hereditary, "but he is not installed until he has solemnly engaged, in the presence of the people, not to alter or deviate from the ancient laws and customs of the kraal." The usual explanation or argument of this people is: "Tis Hottentot custom and ever was so." 7

Dahomans." Custom rules everybody and everything at the Court of Dahomy."

Ashantes.-The king is represented as an absolutely despotic monarch, but he is under "obligation to observe the national customs which have been handed down to the people from remote antiquity, and a practical disregard of this obligation, in the attempt to change some of the customs of their forefathers, cost Osai Quamina his throne." "

The violation of a few fundamental and most socially necessary of these ancient customs, awakens in the savage breast everywhere, intense abhorrence and a passionate longing for vengeance, which brings immediate or speedy death, or outlawry, upon the hated individual.3

Oftentimes the horror occasioned by the crime is so overmastering and the social revenge so immediate, impulsive and irregular, that one is tempted to classify the punishment under the head of social reflex action, like the vengeance inflicted by animal communities; and surely those death penalties, meted out by savage races in moments of wild fury and excitement, do occasionally deserve the name of semi-reflex, and remind us forcibly of the probably instinctive and utterly unreasoning beginnings of punishment for crime, precedent to all ideas of morality, and of the fierce warrant and justification for such conduct, in the absolute necessity of social self-defence. But the evidence varies 1 Forbes, ii, 176.

* Beecham, p. 90, et seq.

'See p. 26. Social Punishment Among Animals. The few strong customs which induce social punishment for crime are certainly not the only customs binding savage men. Their whole lives are often enmeshed in a multitude of petty and burdensome regulations, which seem to us in many cases perfectly ridiculous, but which usually contain at bottom a discipline or lesson useful for their stage of social development. At any rate the savages themselves thoroughly believe in the usefulness of these minor rules of life; but the transgressor is punished, not by an outraged social group, but by the terrible fear of impending evil, physical or mental, the dread of sickness, malformation, torture, from unseen supernatural powers, angered by his act.